Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
- During the filming of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Chris Pratt improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- The incredible score for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a 2023 American superhero film written and directed by James Gunn, the concluding chapter of his Guardians trilogy and his final Marvel film before departing to lead DC Studios. The film follows the team as they race to save Rocket Raccoon's life after he is critically wounded, uncovering his traumatic origin as an experimental subject of the High Evolutionary, played by Chodo Iwuji — a megalomaniacal geneticist who created Rocket and other anthropomorphic animals in his obsessive quest to engineer a perfect species. Rocket's backstory, revealed through devastating flashbacks of his infancy in the High Evolutionary's laboratory alongside fellow experiments Lylla, Teefs, and Floor, provided the MCU with some of its most emotionally harrowing material — the scenes of animal experimentation and Rocket's early friendships were genuinely heartbreaking.
Bradley Cooper's vocal performance as Rocket reached new emotional depths, and the film's themes of found family, trauma, and the courage to move forward resonated as a fitting conclusion to the trilogy's central emotional arc. James Gunn's curated soundtrack featured Radiohead's "Creep," the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep till Brooklyn," and Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over." Vol. 3 earned $845 million worldwide and was praised as the MCU's most emotionally satisfying conclusion since Avengers: Endgame.
